2023-01-27, 06:01 PM
Hi PQ crew,
This thread is to let you know about proposed theming changes, and to get your feedback on them.
Arguably, the main accessibility problem of our board has been the difficulty of browsing it on mobile devices with its default theme. We'd tried to offer solutions to ease this difficulty: access via the Tapatalk app as well as a mobile-friendly theme that we installed early on (at the same time as a bunch of other themes, to give members options).
The Tapatalk app mostly works fine and has seen some usage, but it's a bit of a hoop to expect members to jump through, and it doesn't help us to retain visiting guests on mobile devices who, being confronted with the default mobile-unfriendly theme, potentially don't bother to look further and stick around.
The custom mobile-friendly theme we'd installed was regularly used by at most one member: it wasn't an especially compelling choice.
After the last upgrade of our board's forum software, I decided to do something about this situation.
I started by deleting all of the additional themes we'd installed, including the custom mobile-friendly one. Why? Because the task of maintaining them - updating templates on every MyBB upgrade (or most upgrades anyway) - was so tedious that for several years I had only been performing it for the Default theme. Thus, all of the other themes were broken to at least some extent, potentially fatally, and potentially to the extent of constituting a security risk. Given that they had so few users, the cost of keeping them wasn't worth the negligible benefit.
This left only two themes: the MyBB Default theme which almost everybody uses, and the one descended from it which customises the posts font for Dave (of the Kam-ish rather than Bailey-ish variety).
I then installed a new mobile-friendly theme that I've been very impressed with since it was first released: Bitoony's Roundo Light.
After a fair bit of work to tailor it to our board and to enhance it with my ideas, aided and assisted by some great testing and feedback by in particular, it's now ready for general use or at least general testing. I invite you to choose it via the Theme Selector bottom of page and see what you think. Let us know what you like, what you don't like, what works, what doesn't, and any suggestions, criticisms, and other feedback that you have. In particular, let us know how well it works for you on your mobile devices, and whether you endorse its being set as the default theme for our board, so that we finally have a default mobile-friendly theme that is (in my view) a compelling choice.
The current default theme would still be accessible, will still be maintained, and nobody would be forced to stop using it if they prefer it - Roundo would simply be the theme experienced by guests, and the theme set for new members at registration (who, too, would be free to switch if they preferred).
I'm pretty excited to share this theme with you all. Technically, it's been shared since I quietly installed it and began customising it three and a half weeks ago, but nobody seemed to have noticed or at least adopted it. This is, in a sense, then, its unveiling. I look forward to your reactions...
This thread is to let you know about proposed theming changes, and to get your feedback on them.
Arguably, the main accessibility problem of our board has been the difficulty of browsing it on mobile devices with its default theme. We'd tried to offer solutions to ease this difficulty: access via the Tapatalk app as well as a mobile-friendly theme that we installed early on (at the same time as a bunch of other themes, to give members options).
The Tapatalk app mostly works fine and has seen some usage, but it's a bit of a hoop to expect members to jump through, and it doesn't help us to retain visiting guests on mobile devices who, being confronted with the default mobile-unfriendly theme, potentially don't bother to look further and stick around.
The custom mobile-friendly theme we'd installed was regularly used by at most one member: it wasn't an especially compelling choice.
After the last upgrade of our board's forum software, I decided to do something about this situation.
I started by deleting all of the additional themes we'd installed, including the custom mobile-friendly one. Why? Because the task of maintaining them - updating templates on every MyBB upgrade (or most upgrades anyway) - was so tedious that for several years I had only been performing it for the Default theme. Thus, all of the other themes were broken to at least some extent, potentially fatally, and potentially to the extent of constituting a security risk. Given that they had so few users, the cost of keeping them wasn't worth the negligible benefit.
This left only two themes: the MyBB Default theme which almost everybody uses, and the one descended from it which customises the posts font for Dave (of the Kam-ish rather than Bailey-ish variety).
I then installed a new mobile-friendly theme that I've been very impressed with since it was first released: Bitoony's Roundo Light.
After a fair bit of work to tailor it to our board and to enhance it with my ideas, aided and assisted by some great testing and feedback by
The current default theme would still be accessible, will still be maintained, and nobody would be forced to stop using it if they prefer it - Roundo would simply be the theme experienced by guests, and the theme set for new members at registration (who, too, would be free to switch if they preferred).
I'm pretty excited to share this theme with you all. Technically, it's been shared since I quietly installed it and began customising it three and a half weeks ago, but nobody seemed to have noticed or at least adopted it. This is, in a sense, then, its unveiling. I look forward to your reactions...